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“Black Crickets” of the sub-family Teleogryllus move around freely at night and often find them self in trouble in the water. Like their hopper and locust cousins they are high in protein and sought after by trout. From a fly tiers point of view these crickets are up to 35 mm in length when mature and they are black all over. They have stout bodies (4 to 5:1) and strong hinged legs that normally present extended rather than bent as is often the case with hoppers. Depending on their stage in development wing casings can be mere stubs or the full length of the body.

“Crickets” should be fished in the current with as little line drag as possible or with short jerking strips.  It is worth noting that drowned cricket flies will also work because whilst most of the naturals are taken on the surface some do sink and are still taken by trout and other fish.

General form and colour together with presentation and how you fish them will help you fool the fish. Whilst there are quite a few cricket patterns out there it's hard to go past this one and it's not really necessary to carry more than one representation in your fly box.

Materials

Process

A	Wind the thread from right behind the eye of the hook all the way to the bend of the hook in close turns. Understanding hooks Tie in a tail of two matching turkey biots. Legs on flies Tie in a length of micro estaz chenille at the bend of the hook.

B	Wind the micro estaz chenille forward in touching turns along the rear 2/3 of the hook shank. Tie the chenille off and trim the excess. Cut a length of closed cell foam which is as wide as the gape of the hook with a sharp V at one end. For this #10 hook trout fly I have used 1.5 mm closed cell foam.

C	Tie the foam in tightly at the two thirds position and bind it all the way to the eye of the hook. The tip of the closed cell foam should be directly above the tip of the biot tail. Make up two knotted legs of feather slips. I have used around 10 hackle fibres in each slip for each leg from a crow wing feather but other long black feather slips will do. Similar to knotted pheasant tail legs

D	Continue binding the closed cell foam down on the hook shank all the way to the eye of the hook.

E	Dub on a thorax of seals fur dubbing. Single strand dubbing Finish the thorax with your thread at the 2/3 position.

F	Pull the foam over the front forming a bulbous head and tie it off at the 2/3 position. Make a couple of multi hitches by hand at the 2/3 position so as to tie the thread off and trim the excess thread. A drop of head cement over the multi hitches will ensure that they don't come undone. Multi hitches by hand Trim the excess foam away so that the back of the wing casing finished in a V. Split the closed cell foam above the body so as to represent two wings.

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